Britishers have just done their fighting in their own nonchalant
way "because they had to" -- with scarcely a shadow of malice or
revenge -- rather with that respect for a doughty opponent which
always distinguishes the true fighter.

Think of that quaint story (Between The Lines, by Boyd Cable, pp 188 ff)
of the German Burschen in their trenches, singing with pious enthusiasm
the Song of Hate (probably commanded and compelled, poor devils, to sing it)
and our men for days secretly listening, learning the words, practicing
the tune on their muffled, mouth-organs; till having got it all
complete they one morning, burst it forth in full chorus on the
astonished Teutons, nor failed at the end to blaze out
"Gott strafe England" at the top of, their voices as if they really
meant it -- and then subsided into a roar of laughter. They simply would
not take the German "Hate" seriously.

Well, what can an enemy do with such an army? It would seem indeed
to be invincible.


The other surprising thing about this Army is (but it is also in
part true of the Russians and others) that the members of it not
only bear so little malice in their heart of hearts against the
enemy, but that all the time they (or nine-tenths of them) are giving
their life-blood, for a Country which in hardly any available or
adequate sense can really be said to belong to them.

Not one man of ours in ten, probably not one in a hundred, has any
direct rights or interest in his native soil; and the Motherland
has too often (at any rate in the past) turned out a stepmother